There is no cure.
Plastic bronchitis is a condition in which bronchial casts, with rubber like consistency develop and cause airway obstruction. These casts build up and eventually break off and they are hard so he has to cough them out. Coughing these casts out is very difficult for him and is strenuous on his heart. Many medicines were tried but none helped, except one. It is an inhaler that he uses every four hours and reduces the build up of the casts.
The medication costs $24,000 a month.
He’s a vet. He’s in his 50’s. He’s
soft spoken, doesn’t like to smile because he’s missing some teeth. He is a
proud man. He has been living on the streets for almost a year. He finally
agreed to meet with someone at the Denver House to discuss housing. He has
nightmares. He served in the military, but he has never said when or for how
long. He has medals but he won’t talk about the war. He’s alone. He refuses to
make friends because he doesn’t want another one to die. He won’t go to the VA
because, “There are many guys out there needing help more than me, I’ll make
it.” After a long time he agreed to apply for disability. He disappears in
thought often. When he “comes back” he is sad and full of guilt.
He struggles to make it through another day, but it is so tough because he can’t stop remembering.
He worked his whole life. He was a paint and body man. He paid his bills and when his mother-in-law gave him some land, they built a house. The kids remember vacations to California, camping trips to Keystone lake, TU football games, birthday parties and gifts beneath the Christmas tree every year. When he could have retired, he continued to work as an estimator traveling all over Oklahoma. His dementia continued to get worse. He loved piddling in his yard, planting tomatoes and mowing the grass, burning trash. Then one day he fell and dislocated his shoulder. After ER visits and doctor visits he continued to decompensate. The family worked quickly to find a nursing home.
His life was forever changed.
On Medicaid
the five year old received his medication each month. On Medicaid the Veteran
received mental health services and medication. On Medicaid this hard working
man moved into a nursing home.
I find it
ironic that those who are vehemently against programs that help the poor and
call those on Medicaid “lazy” are the same people who are too lazy to seek the
truth. It’s called generational
prejudice, accepting what someone says as fact when instead it is a lie, and it
is crushing the people of our state who are suffering. Maybe even someone you
know.
Medicaid, Sooner Care in Oklahoma, covers
low-income Oklahomans who otherwise go uninsured. “The majority of people
covered by Medicaid are predominately children; the elderly and persons with
disabilities. To qualify for Medicaid the individual must be both low-income
and eligible to qualify by fitting into one of these categories: children,
seniors and disabled adults, pregnant women and very low-income parents with
dependent children. Most healthy
working-age adults in Oklahoma do not qualify for Medicaid. Oklahoma has the 45th
lowest median income in the country for families with children and a quarter of
the state’s children live in poverty.”
*
We closed
facilities that cared for adults with special needs that were too severe for
their families to manage. We closed most of the psychiatric hospitals without putting
services in place to care for those who had no family to take them in. The
“institutions” were shut down before the community based services were
established and funded. As time goes on these programs have never been fully
funded and our neighbors, friends and family are falling through the cracks.
There are
folks I see who are too mentally ill to recognize they need to stay on their
medication. I see folks who have uncontrolled diabetes and cognitive deficits
and no support system; they cannot manage the responsibility of taking care of
their health much less managing a household even if they were placed in
housing. The support services they need are being cut and there weren’t enough
services to begin with.
There are
individuals who are ready to go in for rehab for substance and alcohol abuse
and can’t get in due to waiting lists that are weeks or months long. I see a
couple of people who go to the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health or the Crisis
Center over and over again. Sometimes they are stabilized temporarily and
discharged only to go back to the streets and the same environment that set
them into crisis to begin with.
There are so
many gaps in the system and with continued funding cuts, the gaps will get
wider and every one of us will be touched personally by someone struggling with
substance abuse, mental illness, someone who is suicidal, child abuse, elder
abuse, homelessness, Alzheimer’s disease or a need for a nursing home. If you
think I’m wrong, I can tell you that when you or your family member are blindsided
by crisis, there won’t be services for you or your loved one. We cannot
continue to live in denial and think if we ignore it, all of “that” will go
away.
“That” is
growing and getting worse and the needs are deep and complicated. Churches that
pay someone’s electric bill or giving a bag of groceries isn’t even close to
meeting the needs of our generational poor, our working poor and our middle
class. The Iron Gate is the only agency that provides a hot meal every day of
the year; they need the opportunity to expand. The needs are growing not
lessening, especially during the summer when kids are out of school.
Schools. We
will not grow our economy with new business once potential businesses see how
our state disregards our teachers and our students. It is truly shameful. How disheartening it is to see Tulsa’s philanthropists and foundations spending millions upon millions for a park when our working population, social
services agencies and poor people are starving from neglect.
If the
funding cuts that are looming over the Medicaid program go into effect,
hospitals, nursing homes, mental health clinics will shut down. Which means all
of those folks will go somewhere to look for help…and they’ll come to Tulsa,
Oklahoma City, Bartlesville, etc. We can’t meet the needs we have now in Tulsa,
much less when the refugees in rural areas begin arriving here seeking services.
I am so
mortified by the hatred and blatant disrespect I see between political parties.
I’m going to say it. In Oklahoma, we haven’t expanded Medicaid or even
attempted to make the Affordable Care Act work because both programs came from
a black President who is also a Democrat.
Really? We
are so filled with stubborn pride and hatred that being against something
irrationally is more important than the lives of our friends, family and
neighbors. I am so heartbroken that no one has said, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I
will listen. I will compromise. I care.” Discourse is not possible because of an
“us” against “them” attitude. Leaders
your stonewalling is creating a humanitarian crisis.
Why do we
have to wait for tragedy to strike before we take action? Why can’t we be
proactive to ensure that we have the services available and put prevention
services in place? Why can’t people in power work together for the people of
this state? Where is your sense of urgency? Where is your compassion? Where is
your Christianity?
Please don’t remain in
ignorant silence because the social issues are just too hard to face. Please
take the time to write your Congressman, Senator, the Governor and ask them to
support the Medicaid Rebalancing Act of 2020 and to support the Tobacco Tax.
Take the time to learn more about these social issues before a crisis hits your
family.
What more can be done?
We need step
down services for the chronically mentally ill after they are discharged from a
psychiatric facility. We need more sober living homes for those who make it
through rehab and need a safe place to get their bearings back without going
back to the same environment that set them into crisis to begin with.
There are
seniors living alone all over our city. They are going without enough food,
medication and socialization because they are not reaching out for help, either
because they don’t know who to contact or they aren’t completely aware of how
dire their situation is.
Child abuse
is escalating in Oklahoma. If our children lose their Sooner Care, they won’t
see a doctor for Well Child Checks, they won’t go in for immunizations and without
the safety net of seeing a provider then we’re going to lose more children
because no one will know they’re being abused. Special needs kids and disabled
adults who require 24/7 caregiving by family and agencies, will suffer because
those support systems will be cut and there will be no respite for the
caregivers.
The Day
Center is the only infirmary where homeless folks can go to recover after being
hospitalized. Folks without insurance who need physical or occupational therapy
or assistive devices or oxygen can’t get the help they need so they can’t heal
properly. Many of these folks were working, contributing members of society
until they were injured but without services they won’t be able to go back to
work.
We need
housing for folks who don’t qualify for other housing programs. We need day
care that’s affordable for working moms and dads who don’t qualify for a DHS
day care voucher. We need transportation for seniors to get to doctors’
appointments and for people who are working the night shift and don’t have a
car. The city buses don’t run all night or on Sundays. We need to provide meals
at times when there are no meals being served. We need to work with management
of subsidized housing complexes to provide activities, classes and benevolence
by caring enough to go into the complexes and getting to know the residents.
How can we afford to put all of these
services in place?
Churches.
Churches
will have multi-million dollar capital campaigns for more buildings to ensure
the saved have a comfortable place to go to church with their kids. But where
are the capital campaigns for people? To fill service gaps. To aid local
non-profits who have to cut programs due to lack of funding.
“Did you
know that Christians, in the name of Christ, have founded the majority of
hospitals in the world? And that the church is still the largest single
provider of health care in most of the world’s poorest places? And that the
church leads the world in offering free health care to the terminally
ill?...Churches founded 128 of the first 138 universities in America…programs
for the poor and marginalized, such as free schooling for poor children, the
world’s largest orphanage systems, and debt relief for the poor.” ** We need
churches to get out of their pews and into the neighborhoods that surround
them. We need churches to once again step forward and make a significant impact
right here in our state.
What if a
church did a capital campaign for buses? Buses that can take a senior to the
grocery store or take a working mom to work or a student to school. Buses that
pick up working folks from the night shift.
What if a
church did a capital campaign for local sober living ministries so they can
expand and care for more people? What if churches opened their kitchens and
served a meal a week that was open to everyone, no charge. If you want to know
the needs of the people in and around your church…just share a meal with them.
What if
churches established medical benevolence ministries? Paying for Physical Therapy
and Occupational Therapy for folks without insurance. Paying for medicine.
Paying for doctor’s appointments, paying for oxygen, providing bedside commodes
and hospital beds. Isaiah 58, In His
service is doing what we can to be a ministry “gap filler” by helping with some
of these needs.
What if
churches partnered with Aim High Academy, Crisis Pregnancy Outreach, The Day Center, Indian Health Care Resource Center, Iron Gate, Life Senior Services, The Little Light House, Manna House, Mental Health Association, TARC and even DHS and had capital campaigns that helped sustain these
agencies and helped them grow to help the enormous numbers of people in need
and walked with them for the long term, to ensure financial stability? I named just
a few there are so many amazing agencies in our community that are ready and
waiting to partner with a church for the long haul.
What if
churches hired a licensed and degreed Social Worker? A Social Worker can triage
the folks in need who show up at our churches. With a network in place and
capital campaigns providing services that fill the gaps, think of how many
folks we could love on? Social Workers would meet with Social Workers at other
churches and non-profits so all of the services available would be known by
all. That way we would have less duplication of services and when we recognize
another gap, then we get another church involved.
Wouldn’t it
be great if we worked together for the better of our community? We remember
what compassion is and empathy and we listen and respond with a heart’s desire
to meet needs and improve lives. By doing so, we can learn to work together
again, and recognize we are more alike than we are different and we will regain
our humanity of doing unto others as we would want others to do unto us.
Oh, the man
I mentioned earlier? The one who had to be put into a nursing home?
That was my Dad.
He worked
his whole life to provide for his family. He and my Mom would go without so we
kids could get stuff we really didn’t need. I remember really wanting a
mini-bike because my friend across the street had one. They made sure I got one.
For many years, on July 4th we would celebrate in our back yard. Relatives and
friends would come over for ribs or steak or chicken that my Dad would grill;
fresh corn on the cob, watermelon, homemade ice cream and of course a big
fireworks show at the end of the night.
My Mom and
Dad didn’t save a whole lot because they never made a whole lot. But, they
voted and paid their taxes and my Dad was an incredibly generous man. He gave
to many non-profits that we never knew about until he could no longer open and
read his mail. My Dad lazy? Absolutely not.
When we had
to put Dad into a memory care nursing home, my Mom paid out of pocket until he
qualified for Medicaid. It was such a difficult time for my family.
What
happened to my Dad could happen to your Mom or your Dad too.
If there was
no Medicaid available we would have spent all of my parent’s savings in less
than a year. My sisters and I could not afford $4,500 month to keep him in
there. We needed hope.
That hope
was Medicaid.
In His
service,
deni A.
fholer, LMSW, CCFP
executive
director/presidentIsaiah 58, In His service, Inc.
PO Box 521063
Tulsa OK 74152
918-260-1933
I58ihs@gmail.com
www.i58ihs.blogspot.com
501©3 nonprofit ministry
We can do more. We can do better.
*Medicaid 101: The Sooner Care safety Net, OK Policy.org, Oklahoma Policy Institute
**God for the Rest of Us by Vince Antonucci
To learn more go to: http://okpolicy.org/files/Medicaid%20101%20SoonerCare%20Safety%20Net.pdf?b0f37e
To guide you in encouraging your church to start a capital campaign read:
Barefoot Church by Brandon Hatmaker
May 03, 2016
Very powerful and thought-provoking commentary.
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